


Keep My Heart Beating

by fragile_vampire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula was traumatized and used as a child, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Girls Kissing, Metaphors, One-Shot, Symbolism, being rewarded for it is worse, perfectionism fucks your brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24582814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragile_vampire/pseuds/fragile_vampire
Summary: "You're an absolute wreck, Azula. And I love you."--Azula has been doing horrible things since she was a child. Some say she's a monster. Ty Lee sees something beautiful in her, though.
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 150





	Keep My Heart Beating

“I used to dream about being perfect.”

Azula looked down over a cliff to the scorched earth below. There was once a rainforest there - one of the largest in the Earth Kingdom. But to smoke out rebels, her father commissioned her to destroy their whole hiding place: the forest. What was once a beautiful ecosystem of colorful life was reduced to ash.

Ty Lee stood next to her, holding her hand. “What do you dream about now?” she asked.

“Drowning in the ocean,” she answered, breaking away from her. She walked down the dirt slope to the once-forest floor. Men were there awaiting further instruction.

“You told us to keep burning until duskfall, but there’s nothing left to burn, your Terribleness,” one of the men explained.

Azula dismissed them. “It’s good enough. You may leave.”

The men high-fived celebratorily, stoked to leave work early.

Azula kneeled to the ground, running her evenly manicured fingers through the soot-littered dirt. Ty Lee walked up behind her and put an arm on her shoulder as a cold breeze blew by. The silence was deafening. Maybe leaves could’ve rustled in that wind, or birds could’ve sung in it.

“My mother called me a monster,” Azula spoke finally. Talking about her mother filled her throat with a lump of regret that made her want to cry for some reason. “And she was right.”

“I’m sorry,” Ty Lee mumbled.

“Don’t be,” Azula laughed slightly. “I thought it was a compliment. My father wanted me to be perfect, and my mother wanted me to be a monster. So that’s what I am. A perfect monster.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I mean it--”

“You might be a monster,” interrupted Ty Lee, picking up a clump of dirt in her hands, “but you’re not perfect.” She lifted her hands to show the dirt, which held a young green plant.

Azula received the plant in her hands. “If Father found out I left even a sprout I would have failed. 99% was never enough. If I didn't get 100%, I was nothing."

Ty Lee exhaled sympathetically, then wrapped her dirt-covered hands around Azula’s hair, removing her hair-clips. "You were never perfect. You were just burning down the parts of yourself that didn’t fit."

Azula felt her thick black hair fall heavily around her shoulders. She looked into Ty Lee’s eyes with shame. “You have no idea what kind of a horrible monster I am,” she shuddered, tears flowing when she spoke the word her mother gave her.

Ty Lee simply ran her hands through Azula’s straight hair, over and over, messing it up until it was tangled in disarray. "You're an absolute wreck, Azula. And I love you."

She smiled, and then leaned in to kiss her.

Azula knew she should destroy the baby plant between her hands. Her father demanded it. She couldn’t burn it, though. It was the beginning of something that Ty Lee had given her.

Ty Lee pulled her lips away briefly to say, “ _Dream about me._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I got sad thinking about these characters today, so I wrote this because Azula deserves a loving girlfriend.
> 
> This is a fic based on [Losing Infinity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24403627/chapters/58868464).


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